6.1: Return of the Shockadin

[Jackielope]

6.1: Return of the Shockadin

Work in progress guide, but it's mostly layout and crap that should be dealt with once this gets put up. I will not be going over any mythic or LFR fights.

6.1 made two big changes for Holy DPS: Both Holy Shock and Denounce damage got buffed by 50%. Before this change we could do single target damage on par with tanks in survival mode, but after this change we can do ST damage to the tune of 40k DPS at ilvl 695. This is a guide to help you get the most from what Shockadins have to offer.

Note that Holy does do less damage than pretty much all DPS specs assuming equal gear and equal play. Chat with your raid leader about whether you'll be allowed to go DPS since you might not be up to par. This is a healing spec after all so don't expect to compete unless you're playing with people who aren't very good at their class.


Table of Contents:


Glyphs
DPS abilities and priority
Gearing
Talents
Highmaul boss overviews
BRF boss overviews



Glyphs:

Before we get to other parts of the guide, it must be said that Shockadin absolutely requires two major glyphs to do good damage: Harsh Words and Holy Shock. Harsh Words is needed to give a damaging Holy Power dump while Holy Shock is needed to boost Holy Shock's damage. HS is the largest part of our DPS at 38-42%, which means the glyph contributes 1/5th of that (25 of 125 is 1/5) so not using it is a 9% DPS loss compared to using it. Harsh Words is technically less DPS than that but not using it means less burst potential and it's wasted resources. HaW is also the main reason for burst DPS using Holy Avenger.

Merciful Wrath might be a boost in some circumstances. Using SimC version 612-02 I'm seeing it as a DPS loss, but in version 610 or so it was a DPS gain. Your mileage may vary.


Damage abilities and priorities:

Shockadins have four worthwhile damage abilities and their priority order is:

L90 talent
Harsh Words
Holy Shock
Denounce

Notice that none of those except the L90/T6 talents can deal AoE damage. Thus shockadin has no AoE or cleave and on fights where that is required (such as Tectus) you will not be able to keep up with other DPS who have proper kits to deal with that.


Gearing:

The general trend for stats is Multistrike>Crit=Haste>Versatility.

Mastery is not on the list because Shockadin gets no damage bonus from it whatsoever.

It might seem odd that crit isn't on top. That's due to Holy Shock being able to get 100% crit during AW. All the plots for Shockadin have a point on them where crit suddenly gets lower value. It's not a huge change, but it is noticeable since it lowers crit's value below multistrike's value.

Don't be fooled if you sim for stat weights only and get haste as worse than versatility or better than multi. Plotting it out will show it dances around crit and averages out about the same in the long run.

The PVP 2 piece bonus does not work on PVE bosses. Only use PVP gear if the stats are better such as our crit/multistrike PVP gloves if you don't have the tier gloves instead. The T17 PVE set bonuses are worthless for Shockadin DPS so use what other stuff you get.

Spirit gear is not worthwhile to use in a pure Shockadin setup. If you're doing a hybrid role and need the mana for healing too then it might be useful. This might change in the future if Blizzard buffs spirit like they mentioned is possible in the latest Q&A. If spirit gets buffed to give an equal amount of spellpower then it would be the best secondary stat for DPS.

Note that SimC says mana is an issue for longer fights but something is wrong with the way it handles Holy's mana since players in game say it's impossible to lose mana just using Holy Shock on CD. Fixing the mana issue in sims is not a priority because simulating Holy healing has been disabled due to crashes in SimC and there being almost no demand for it. Holy DPS is still maintained because I let the devs know about changes in it and it's very easy to maintain.


Talents:

(T1 / L15) Movement

Speed of Light is the go-to talent for this tier simply because many situations require a sprint and then you can go back to turret mode.
Pursuit of Justice has its place if you simply want a base speed boost and might be riding on some HoPo. The benefit maxes out at 3 HoPo so if you only use Harsh Words at 5 then you always have at least a 25% speed buff and often a 30%.
Long Arm of the Law is very, very rarely worthwhile because Judgment damage is so incredibly weak. It also requires an enemy target to cast it on which might not be possible depending on the fight and where you're positioned. Don't take it.


(T2 / L30) Crowd Control

Fist of Justice is the best talent this tier. Many enemies can be stunned and with such a short cooldown it's a no-brainer to use this.
At the moment both Repentance and Blinding Light are poor choices. It's rare that something in boss encounters will be worth the CC either provides.


(T3 / L45) Healing spells

Sacred Shield is the only option here if you're ever going to use this tier for utility/healing.
Eternal Flame does not work with Harsh Words and consumes HoPo instead of Harsh Words, so it's always a loss to use it. If it could do WoG's damage on an enemy then cast the HoT on an ally with Beacon it would be used.
Selfless Healer is laughably bad and should not be taken. In fact, even if it made Judgments grant Holy Power it would be behind on DPS because Judgment's damage is so terrible to begin with and 1 Harsh Word does not make up the difference between 3 Judgments and 4 Denounces.


(T4 / L60) Utility

These talents will vary based on the fight and all of them have some use. Pick whichever one works for you and your raid.


(T5 / L75)

Holy Avenger and Sanctified Wrath are both viable with their pros and cons. Holy Avenger grants more burst damage and is an extra cooldown while Sanctified Wrath gives more steady and overall DPS. Which one is better will depend on the fight. Divine Purpose is always worse than HA or SW and should never be used.


(T6 / L90) Healing/damage hybrid spells

Execution Sentence is the best single target damage (and healing) talent, but Light's Hammer could have a place depending on the fight and what your goals are. Default to ES for damage unless there's a want to do the AoE healing and damage from LH. Holy Prism eats too many GCDs to really be worthwhile.


(T7 / L100) Beacon modifiers

Saved by the Light is the only passive option on this row. All you have to do with Saved by the Light is toss Beacon of Light on one of the tanks and if you really care about maximizing the gains on this (it can be worthwhile to help prevent deaths) then you just switch Beacon to the other tank so they can get a shield. SbtL is also useful for helping yourself survive. Both Beacon of Faith and Beacon of Insight require healing to make use of, but since you're DPS that won't matter to you unless you are compelled to do some hybrid work.



Raid bosses:


Highmaul:


Kargath:
A great fight for Shockadin overall due to being single target. Berserker Rush can be a pain to deal with but Speed of Light will help with that. Just make sure to position yourself so you don't fall into a Tiger Pit or get hit by a Flame Jet and you'll be fine. This goes for any knockbacks and of course stay out of the Bileslinger and Bomber crap. Do not go into the stands for Chain Hurl since you don't have AoE DPS and you're not in healer mode.


Butcher:
Perfect fight for Shockadin. Entirely single target with little movement even on Mythic. You'll likely be part of the Bounding Cleave soak team because Holy is always flagged as range so stay out of melee. During the Frenzy at the last 30% you might want to use Light's Hammer to help out on the melee healing while still doing some sort of DPS, but the mana cost on it is high enough that it might not get used regularly on the fight.


Brackenspore:
A difficult encounter, but doable as Shockadin. You won't be able to damage both BS and the Flesh-eaters at the same time but you might be in range of the FFE to Rebuke them assuming mana is not a problem (and with the Rejuv shrooms done right it probably won't be). Mind Fungus are annoying but the usual raid stacking and moving or killing it when it pops up means it's not an issue. Spore Shooters can easily be intercepted by us and DP can be used to help lower damage from them since it's not physical damage, though the damage probably isn't enough to care too much about in the first place. Shockadins can handle the flamethrowers due to Speed of Light, being ranged, and being able to bubble off Infesting Spores in case they get to really high stacks. If you manage to get enough flamethrower buff stacks then you can pop AW and HA for some nice burst damage.


Tectus:
No. Don't even think about doing Tectus with Shockadin. You do not have the cleave damage necessary to be useful on this fight.


Twin Ogron:
Not recommended. The fight is entirely cleave which means you'll be stuck doing single target DPS.


Ko'ragh:
Great fight. Single target (you'll be able to ignore the little adds) means Holy can do the only DPS it's reasonably capable of. Since Shockadin is good at burst and does purely magic damage, when Ko'ragh's shield breaks you simply use AW and HA to excellent effect especially if you pop Bloodlust on the first shield break. As far as getting the Nullification Barrier to absorb orbs goes, Holy could probably do it if pressed but it's just better to use Hunters or other more mobile ranged DPS for them. You're here to nuke, not absorb nukes. For utility you can give the Nullification Barrier target a Beacon (make sure to set up who goes in first and switch Beacon to them before the boss's shield goes down) just in case they get below 30% health and trigger your SbtL.


Imperator Mar'gok:
Doable but you'll have issues during the add phases since AoE is usually wanted. You can focus down the mages though so save CDs for that.



Blackrock Foundry:

Gruul:
Single target with some movement. Holy will be fine here.


Ore gorger:
Pretty decent and fun fight overall. Stay out of the damaging ground crap for first phase and maybe use DivProt on the Acid Torrent if you care to. You can't damage more than one ore crate at once in the second phase but it's not a huge issue. The running around is annoying but manageable. The Earthshaking Collisions in the second phase are nature damage so DivProt will help lower damage from that if the phase goes on long enough for you to be worried about the hits.


Blast Furnace/Heart of the Mountain:
Haha, no. Lots of adds mean Holy will definitely suck on all difficulties.

Hans and Franz:
Not good for Holy. It's a cleave fight and there tends to be a lot of movement.


Flamebender Ka'graz:
Doable but a bit annoying. The initial cleave/multi-DoT to kill Aknor is pretty meaningless. The two Cinder Wolves are a bigger issue but if you and your raid are on top of things they should die fast enough that Holy's weaknesses won't be much of a drawback. The potential heavy movement can be a problem but Holy has enough tools and short enough casts that it can be handled fine.


Kromog:
Plenty doable. All single target with some movement and making sure you don't die to stupid stuff.


Beastlord Darmac:
Eh, it's doable for Shockadins. You can't do meaningful AoE to the little adds that spawn and if you have to help clean up the spears you're not doing any damage to the boss during those casts. That said, if the adds and spears are getting killed quickly by everyone else then it's entirely single target so you can work it. If you're saving Bloodlust for the last 40% of his health then the burst Shockadin does might be an asset but there's really not much to do.


Operator Thogar:
Large groups of adds means Shockadin should not be used.


Iron Maidens:
Doable, but it's a pain. Technically doesn't require cleave since the raid can get each of the admirals down to 25% one at a time then AoE, but it is quite helpful.


Blackhand:
Probably not. You might not have enough DPS on your own to be worth the DPS slot.

[Pasture]

Damage abilities and priorities:

Shockadins have four worthwhile damage abilities and their priority order is:

L90 talent
Harsh Words
Holy Shock
Denounce

Wouldn't it be better to prioritise Holy Shock over Harsh Words if both are ready for use at the same time?

Holy Shock is managed via a cooldown, so it should always be used as soon as available. You're dropping HP generation AND your main source of damage by delaying it.

Harsh Words, on the other hand, can pretty safely be delayed since you can bank two extra HP before wasting potential damage. So long as you use it before you cap HP, and don't waste the final one of the fight, you're not really losing anything by holding off the cast.

[Jackielope]

Wouldn't it be better to prioritise Holy Shock over Harsh Words if both are ready for use at the same time?

Holy Shock is managed via a cooldown, so it should always be used as soon as available. You're dropping HP generation AND your main source of damage by delaying it.

Harsh Words, on the other hand, can pretty safely be delayed since you can bank two extra HP before wasting potential damage. So long as you use it before you cap HP, and don't waste the final one of the fight, you're not really losing anything by holding off the cast.

Such a situation will never happen. Holy Shock is the only source of Holy Power, thus if you cast it to get to 3 HoPo you're then immediately able to use Harsh Words. HaW is always used during HS's CD even with that priority.

This does have me pondering a bit about the L90 talents though. Putting them below HS and HaW might give a better result. I'll run some sims later to see if it changes anything. Later being after I've slept.

[Pasture]

Such a situation will never happen. Holy Shock is the only source of Holy Power, thus if you cast it to get to 3 HoPo you're then immediately able to use Harsh Words.

I didn't even think of that!

I suppose the only situation would be if you have to move straight after a HS and both were ready for use around the time you stopped, but that's a fairly niche situation.

[Deleted]

Hi thx,

have several questions:

how important is a holy pally weapon, especially ilvl? is it same like for ret where pure ilvl wins ?
i asume strength contribute zero to holy dps, right? (680 str neck -> 660 int neck or so)
is the 40k dps at 495dps refering to burst phases? or avg to a long 4+ or 6+ min fights?
what ilvl is needed to reach sustained 30k+?

ps: i dont try to raid srsly as shockadin, just for fun.

thanks in advance

[Logwyn]

Hi thx,

have several questions:

how important is a holy pally weapon, especially ilvl? is it same like for ret where pure ilvl wins ?
i asume strength contribute zero to holy dps, right? (680 str neck -> 660 int neck or so)
is the 40k dps at 495dps refering to burst phases? or avg to a long 4+ or 6+ min fights?
what ilvl is needed to reach sustained 30k+?

ps: i dont try to raid srsly as shockadin, just for fun.

thanks in advance

LFG would be fun trying this. Maybe soloing. I wonder how well it would switch from damage to healing? Maybe good since its already Holy?

[Jackielope]

Hi thx,

have several questions:

how important is a holy pally weapon, especially ilvl? is it same like for ret where pure ilvl wins ?
i asume strength contribute zero to holy dps, right? (680 str neck -> 660 int neck or so)
is the 40k dps at 495dps refering to burst phases? or avg to a long 4+ or 6+ min fights?
what ilvl is needed to reach sustained 30k+?

ps: i dont try to raid srsly as shockadin, just for fun.

thanks in advance

Spellpower and int are the best DPS stats so the weapon is fairly important since that's the largest single source of spellpower.

You're correct that strength does 0 DPS for shockadin. A 660 int neck is better than a 680 str neck because str is useless to us.

40k DPS at 695 is sustained damage. Burst damage is in the 70-80k range, though that can go higher if you take Holy Avenger instead of Sanctified Wrath. The burst damage comes at the cost of sustained damage though.

30k sustained damage looks like it's about 665 or 670 ilvl, assuming perfect itemization including glyph of merciful wrath. Without perfect itemization such as burst trinkets it could take ilvl 680ish to reliably get 30k.

Yup, this sort of thing is just for fun though we do outperform Shadow priests in the 630-650ish ilvl range for pure single target damage.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Tried this for pvp, kinda fun to go head to head with some classes and steal their crit with pvp 2 set XD
It's so much fun to just 3v1 and they have no chance to take you down :P

Damage wise though, does it matter if you spend 1 HoPo Harsh Words over 2 or 3 or does the damage equal out regardless?

[Jackielope]

Tried this for pvp, kinda fun to go head to head with some classes and steal their crit with pvp 2 set XD
It's so much fun to just 3v1 and they have no chance to take you down :P

Damage wise though, does it matter if you spend 1 HoPo Harsh Words over 2 or 3 or does the damage equal out regardless?

It's a significant DPS loss to use 1 HoPo on it. With the 695 ilvl set I just simmed it's 40k for 3 HoPo but only 34.7k for 1 HoPo. This is because Harsh Words at 1 HoPo does less damage than Denounce. Entirely getting rid of Harsh Words results in 37k DPS. 2 HoPo comes up at 39k, so it -might- sim comparably depending on talents but I doubt it.

I'd just stick with 3 HoPo.

[xerxes501]

I am very interested in trying the Shockadin out. I have a few questions. Do we use Hammer of Wrath during execute phases and/or Avenging Wrath? Would Glyph of Denounce be good to use as a third major glyph to increase DPS since it reduces the cast time of denounce with Holy Shock casts?

[Jackielope]

I am very interested in trying the Shockadin out. I have a few questions. Do we use Hammer of Wrath during execute phases and/or Avenging Wrath? Would Glyph of Denounce be good to use as a third major glyph to increase DPS since it reduces the cast time of denounce with Holy Shock casts?

Hammer of Wrath is less than a 1% DPS boost to use instead of Denounce when played perfectly. I expect the slightly added complexity of using it isn't really worth it. Also, we're not Ret so HoW is only available during execute phases.

No, Glyph of Denounce is not a DPS boost except -maybe- in heavy movement fights. The reason it's not an improvement is it doesn't actually allow for more casts to be used. All of Holy's abilities are a single GCD which means the rotation goes HS, 3x Denounce, repeat. The Glyph only shaves off less than half a second, so that time is either spent waiting for the HS CD (which means no DPS gain at all thus the glyph is wasted) or it's used and then shifts HS's CD back, which results in lower DPS.

My advice is to never use the Denounce glyph. Its only real use is in PVP when you want to get an instant Denounce off and can set up the HS casts to get it there.

[Kakera]

It confuses the living shit out of me that people would spend so much time and energy to play the game sub optimally.

[Jackielope]

It confuses the living shit out of me that people would spend so much time and energy to play the game sub optimally.

Then this thread isn't for you and there's really no point in you posting here is there since you have nothing constructive to say. This is for people who might find some amusement from playing this way.

But I suppose it would be useful to put a disclaimer saying it's best to talk with one's raid leader about doing this since it is just for fun and is not recommended for serious play.

[Ssateneth]

It confuses the living shit out of me that people would spend so much time and energy to play the game sub optimally.

Because the game is about having fun. Your idea of fun may not be the next person's idea of fun and vice versa. I don't care for playing WoW pokemon but I don't go over in the pokemon thread and complain about how its a waste of time, do I?

I wish I had a 100 paladin to do this on. I enjoy playing unconventionally and making it work and beating other people. I barely see any gladiator warriors these days because of people feeling it's a bad spec, but it doesn't stop me from topping the meters as a gladiator myself.

[JediKnightCZ]

I've been dying to try Shockadin on our farm bosses, especially on Gruul, but we've had many people just not continue their subscription and I am currently being forced into healing role on more and more raids (which is not bad per se since I can atleast improve myself). That leaves me unable to try this... anyone did so?

I would actually guess that for many guilds a well played shockadin would outdps a poorly played dd which is exactly what I would like to see.

[Jackielope]

I've been dying to try Shockadin on our farm bosses, especially on Gruul, but we've had many people just not continue their subscription and I am currently being forced into healing role on more and more raids (which is not bad per se since I can atleast improve myself). That leaves me unable to try this... anyone did so?

I would actually guess that for many guilds a well played shockadin would outdps a poorly played dd which is exactly what I would like to see.

You're correct that a well-played shockadin could outperform a poor DPS. We have perhaps the easiest rotation/priority system so it's very easy to master compared to other specs.

[xerxes501]

So it would seem that glyph of holy shock was nerfed to 25%, let me know how this affects your dps. I still have not had a chance to test out my holy as shockadin.

[Jackielope]

So it would seem that glyph of holy shock was nerfed to 25%, let me know how this affects your dps. I still have not had a chance to test out my holy as shockadin.

That's just a tooltip update. The actual change went into place with 6.1. It's already accounted for.

If it was left at 50% we'd be doing damage on par with Ret at about 44k in 695 gear. Instead, at 25% we're doing at best 40k in 695 gear.

[Clrg]

I really want to see a log of a holy doing 30k+ dps.

[xerxes501]

That's just a tooltip update. The actual change went into place with 6.1. It's already accounted for.

If it was left at 50% we'd be doing damage on par with Ret at about 44k in 695 gear. Instead, at 25% we're doing at best 40k in 695 gear.

That's what I was hoping to hear,